the curse word annex of amymauk.com

Menu

Happiness as Boolean (Part 1: To-do or not to-do)

Each morning, I wake up and start deciding which things will get done that day. Which things are more urgent, which things will take the longest, which things will serve as a nice break in between more boring things. I keep a to-do list of these things in a desktop gadget (gadget, not widget, cause I’m on Windows).

Side note: I remember when widgets where placeholder words for things one would manufacture if one had a business. “Say you’re making, uh, widgets…” the professor would say. Now that widgets are actual things, I wonder what word business schools use as a placeholder. Smorglflat? And whether WordPress sidebars will soon utilize smorglflat technology. Also, Smorglflat sounds like the name of a black metal band comprised of Muppets.

Anyway, the to-do list. I look at the clock and say, “I have _____ hours. Let’s see how far I can get on this list.”

That’s a fine way to go about things if all you need to do is get things done. If you care about not losing your mind, I’m not sure I’d recommend it.

Trouble is, when you go and go each day until you can’t go anymore, all you’re really doing is working and sleeping. One day, your cat knocks over a glass of Kool Aid and you just lose your shit, that being the final straw in a giant hay bale of frustration and loneliness. As you’re kneeling on a towel in your bedroom, soaking up the last of the seltzer water you used to clean up the spill, you just lean your head on the edge of the bed and cry because you’d think that, for ONE THING on Earth, your cat would let you god damn sleep past 5am.